


Echoes

by alunbalanced



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, I can’t believe this is the first work I’m posting, I’m disappointed in myself, M/M, Not Beta Read, Reni-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:28:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24140611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alunbalanced/pseuds/alunbalanced
Summary: Reni knows best. (Except when he doesn’t.)
Relationships: Past onesided(?) Kamikizaka Reni/Tachibana Yukio, Takato Tasuku/Tsukioka Tsumugi if you squint
Comments: 8
Kudos: 35





	Echoes

’ _I’ll save you,_ ’ he vows silently, and because the words are silent, he doesn’t taste the desperation souring the edge of his determination.

’ _I’ll save you since you’re too blind to save yourself.’_

This time, the words are bitter, and even though they are also silent, he can still taste them like bile rising in his throat to choke him. His eyes stay fixed on the reflection, the echo of himself he sees in the young man before him.

_’Naive_.’

His eyes flick momentarily over to his quiet companion and he has to stifle the surge of ( _hurt; heartbreak; loneliness;_ ) fury that fills his breast when a more familiar face superimposes itself over the one in front of him.

_’Dangerous_ ,’ he thinks venomously, _’all the more because you don’t even realize it._ ’

Tsukioka has talent. It’s a certain degree of subtlety that makes his heart wrench and his eyes tear.

He is riveted; he despises himself for it.

The boy before him could be great, wonderful, he could bloom beautifully — and he revels in the way his face delicately crumples in disappointed hope following his rejection, before the emotion has a chance to be smoothed away.

To dig the knife deeper, he calls the other boy next. His performance is powerful — lacking subtlety, raw, but there’s nothing wrong with that. He can build on that. He offers him a place immediately.

‘ _Come with me,_ ’ he says silently to the boy — Tasuku, he learns.

‘ _I’ll show you how to be free of him,’_ he croons, prays, begs, ‘ _only don’t follow him._ ’

Another side of him watches Tsukioka bite back the hurt, his jaw clenched around his distress. ‘ _It’s a bittersweet feeling, isn’t it? To be left behind. To realize you aren’t necessary.’_

His inner voice is vicious, gleeful in the face of how his loverivalenemy reborn is being made to understand how he felt.

‘ _You see? He doesn’t need you. I won’t let him need you. Better to break the bond now, before he has a chance to give up everything for you, before you have a chance to leave him anyway. You’ll run, just like he did._ ’

It’s a grim sort of vindication when Tasuku returns days later with an empty sort of expression, wintry and closed. It’s one from a falling out, from a parting of ways, it’s hopes that you’ve realized will never be realized — it’s one he recognizes, and he offers his sympathies while silently reassuring him.

‘ _It’s better this way,’_ he thinks bracingly.

‘ _I’ve given you a chance I didn’t have.’_

‘ _It's not too late for you._ ’

_‘You’ll thrive without him like I did, and someday it won’t feel like your heart was torn from your chest when he left.’_

* * *

He throws himself into leading the troupe he built after the wreck that Mankai and its leader left him. He throws himself into it, as he does with anything, with abandon.

And so does Tasuku.

He watches, pride curling his lips at the edges, as the young man steps up and into yet another role, outshining everyone around him.

He knew the boy was a good choice.

_‘I’ll show you what you can really do now that you’re free, Tasuku.’_

And he does. And the troupe thrives, until—

* * *

  
Until she comes along and, with hands that remind him too much of her father’s, carefully starts to revive the garden that was Mankai.

_‘It should have died! She should have left it to rot!’_ He rages silently, eyes bright and fixed on yet another flyer for the next performance.

The Autumn Troupe — his mind whirls. His gaze narrows. The gears turn.

_‘So, they’ll hold auditions to keep growing… perhaps I’ll send a weed in among the flowers.’_

He starts mentally going through a list of members of his own troupe to sacrifice — unfortunate, but necessary. There are plenty of extras who linger at the edges hoping to one day stand in the spotlight — one of them will do nicely.

_‘Don’t worry,’_ he promises, _‘I won’t let them win.’  
  
_

* * *

  
When it all comes crashing down around his ears, as it inevitably would, he expects support from the members of his troupe.

He has been good to them — surely they understand that his aim is only to protect them. Mankai is a threat looming ever closer, and it needs to be torn out by the root or risk growing too wild to be contained.

He receives the support he expected. It was necessary, they agree.

Tasuku does not agree.

It is with a conflicted heart he watches the boy — man, now, back straight and proud, walk out of the theater, the troupe.

Bitterly, he thinks, _‘Fine — this is the thanks I get for saving you from your own stupidity? Fine… fine!’_

And he seals his own fate, eyes burning into that back.

_‘I’ll destroy you.’_

* * *

It’s a foolhardy challenge, and he knows it, but he is also too confident in the ability of his troupe to recant.

There is seething fury, seeing Tasuku has joined that wretched girl, seeing that… Tsukioka, was it? Seeing Tsukioka, as well. He can only hope the bond he helped break between them is too frayed to take again.

He may want to destroy Tasuku for leaving, but he will never want him to feel the way he did with the man he once called his best friend.

The challenge is foolhardy because if he loses — if, if. If he loses, he loses the chance to crush Mankai under his heel. But if he wins… if, if.

If he wins, he will finally have triumphed over the shadow of the memories that haunt him.

_‘You see? I don’t need you after all,’_ as he watches his troupe perform and receive their due, pride limning his gaze.

And Mankai performs, and it is — it is —

The lighting is soft as it caresses the planes of Tasuku’s face, his gaze tender and sorrowful — there almost looks to be a glint of tears in Tsukioka’s returning stare, held gently as his character fades in an embrace that would be appropriate for lovers. For all that their characters are bidding each other farewell, he can see as clear as day the bonds rewoven, the trust, the admiration...

He can feel his heart lodged in his throat, and his eyes grow hot with unshed tears.

The audience is in raptures and the applause tells him the outcome of this contest. He swallows his loss — bittersweet as the day Yukio left him behind.

**Author's Note:**

> “SOMETIMES YOU JUST GOTTA PROJECT YOURSELF AND YOUR LONG LOST BEST FRIEND ONTO TWO DUDES AUDITIONING FOR YOUR TROUPE!!!!!!!!” - the friend who dragged me into this fuckin fandom


End file.
